November 21, 2011 Part 1

November 21, 2011...The day our lives changed forever!  Let me do a little back story.  On Tuesday, November 15th, we received a call from our adoption worker that our birth mom was missing.  She had a history of drug abuse, however, cleaned up after learning she was pregnant.  We were told she relapsed.  No one knew where she was or when she'd return.  Oh, and Nov. 15th was one of my parent-teacher conference days.  I still don't know how I got through that?!

We heard nothing at all the rest of the week and, of course, nothing over the weekend.  We had no idea where she was or what to think.  I made the mistake of watching a horrible show called Cell Block 6- Female Ward that Saturday while I was at the gym.  HUGE mistake!  It put even more horrible thoughts in my head as to where and what our birth mother was up to!

Needless to say, by Monday, I was low.  Really low.  I came into work and told the girls I was so over the adoption process.  I mean, I felt so close, but so far.  How do you lose a birth mother?  A 9 month pregnant birth mother, no less?

So, I called our adoption worker in the morning telling her how discouraged and hopeless I was feeling.  She said she would call the Grand Rapids office and fill us in.  At lunchtime, she called to tell me that they had found the birth mother and she had been staying at a hotel and was safe.  We found out that the birth father we had thought all along was the birth father might not be the birth father.  She admitted and told her boyfriend (the man we thought was the birth father) that there was a possibility of another birth father and snapped because she couldn't handle the stress.  So that was a lot to handle, but I felt good that at least she was okay.

Our adoption worker asked if I would like to have a conference call with the pregnancy counselor in Grand Rapids.  The Grand Rapids lady would NOT call us directly.  She would call our adoption worker and she would have to get a hold of us.  I thought that was pretty dumb...Why couldn't she just contact us directly?  So, I talked to Jesse and we were going to set up a conference call for Wednesday.  Dawn, our adoption worker, said she'd call back after she talked to Linda, the Grand Rapids pregnancy counselor.

My phone went off at 3:05, just as the kids were doing their jobs, chaos was ensuing in my room, so I answered it expecting Dawn to tell me that we had a set conference call for Wednesday.  That is NOT what Dawn told me.  She said instead, "Hi, Michelle.  We just got a call from Linda. Mark (the boyfriend) called to tell us that Theresa (birth mom) was admitted to the hospital."  Oh, great, now what?  was my first thought!  "Theresa is in labor!"  What?  Did she just say what I think she said?  The next few minutes were a complete blur?!  Kids were running around the room.  I could barely listen to Dawn, my heart was pounding so hard!  Our baby was on the way!!

I somehow made it through the kids leaving.  Screamed the news to my friends and Jesse and then proceeded to figure things out with my principal about my sub and all the formalities of my leave.  Then I walked aimlessly around my classroom not sure what to do next.  After about an hour, I left and went to the chiropractor.  I definitely needed an adjustment after this!  I left my phone in the car to charge, since it was practically dead after all my phone calls.

When I was leaving I noticed I had missed a call from Dawn.  The message said something like this, "Hi, Michelle.  It's Dawn.  Theresa delivered the baby.  You have a daughter!"  I was driving down the freeway and tears were streaming down my face!!  I had a daughter!!!  Me, a mother!!  FINALLY!!  I called Jesse and said, "our baby was just born.  Come home!"  He said, "okay, I'm on the way." and hung up.  I laughed to myself as the phone started ringing immediately because I knew what he was going to ask, "what do we have?"  When I told him a girl.  I could hear the joy in his voice.

When Jesse came home, I hugged him and cried my eyes out.  FINALLY!!  Our baby was born!!!  We finished sorting things in the nursery and getting things ready around the house.  We weren't sure when we'd be able to go to the hospital.  Since it is a closed adoption, we would have to wait until Theresa was discharged to go there.  I asked Dawn if I should take Tuesday off and she said no, there wasn't anything we would be able to do, so she didn't want me to waste my day off.

I will continue the story later, but I will leave you with some pictures of our baby girl!